Sin
by DailyKingdom
Summary: As the First Wizarding War gains momentum and the Wizarding World is plunged into fatal conflict, Lily Potter and Alice Longbottom discover a dangerous secret that could destroy everything...and that a mistake from their pasts, come back to haunt them, may very well bring about the end of the world.


**Author's Note: For the millionth time I am making my return to ffnet, and for the millionth time I have taken any and all existing writings down for a clean slate (I believe this is the third or fourth time I have done this). That means that **_**Omega **_**is in the bins for the time being as I dive headfirst into the reimagining of **_**Feels Like it Did Before**_**, although it has been given a new name: Sin. So here it is, chapter one. For the small few who kept updated with the original when it was around, don't expect anything to be the same save for plot line and character involvement. This means all-new scenes and insight into the whole "issue" that I can't give away for the astronomical amount of people who haven't read the original.**

**Enough with my rambling. Only OC's are mine, everything else is property of J.K. Rowling and her business partners. R&R and enjoy!**

It was the eve of Alice and Hector's graduation, something Lily had been dreading since the beginning of the year. Being a 6th year, this meant that she was a class beneath them and would not pass them in the halls or spend idle afternoons underneath the trees of the Black Lake together for some time. She would miss passing foolish little notes to Hector over at the Hufflepuff table during meals and conspiring with him to leave the school and travel the world. Of course, this was not to suggest that there was any sort of romantic aspect to their friendship because, at the end of the day, it was just that – a friendship. Alice enjoyed taking the piss out of them both for sneaking away from supper to go traipsing around the grounds during winter, always using her hands to imitate two people devouring each others' faces.

But the notion itself was silly, and both Lily and Hector let it die in their minds. Alice was a different story, but they discovered that if they just ignored her she would leave them well enough alone.

And maybe Lily would even miss the rumors as well. It got a rise out of James, and it was nice to see him get upset over something other than his hair every once in a while. She couldn't begin to guess if the rumors ever reached Severus, but they didn't speak anymore.

She would miss everything about being friends with Alice and Hector when they left her behind with only the company of James and his gang…but, of course, she would easily find friends to spend the last year of her education with, she was a popular girl, nearly everybody liked her. She thought all of these things to herself on the climb up the steep and wet hill she had agreed two days prior to meet Alice and Hector at. It was a crisp and refreshing night with a pristine sky baring all of its stars for her to see, and the moon itself looked tantalizing in a way as well, but Lily knew it was only because she had been so nervous that she skipped out on supper. Her mother gave her a watch for her fourteenth birthday, two years ago, that was simple and very Muggle-like. The face of it said it was nearly 11 PM. If she were to be caught out of bed at this hour, especially outside of the school, Filch would have a field day. He'd been itching to get his mitts on her, the perfectly-behaved bookish girl that could apparently do no wrong in the eyes of all of her Professors.

She occasionally succumbed to shameful bouts of overt self-confidence but was never one to show it.

The squeaking of trainers on moist grass snapped her out of her self-contemplating trance. She twisted around quickly and saw Alice coming up the hill first, Hector following behind her with an unreadable expression. She ran to them clumsily – forgetting momentarily that the ground was quite slippery – and pulled them into a precarious hug that pushed them all back down to the bottom of the hill in a pile of robes.

"Great way to say goodbye," said Alice. She tossed the bodies off of her and stood up to brush the mud and grass from her uniform. Hector seconded this notion by grunting and raising his hand, then lifted Lily off of him and offered her a hand up. "Oh this is cute, you two are just itching to get at each other, yeah?"

"That's inappropriate, Alice," said Henry.

"But it's true," she replied.

"No," Lily interjected. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail to get it out of her eyes and dusted off her skirt and shoes. "I'm with James, and that's that. You didn't see any of us giving you and Frank a hard time when he was still here."

"You're not helping yourself, Lily," Alice laughed and cocked her head to the side, "because, if I recall correctly, Frank and I have been steady for two years now. What does that say about you two, then?"

They all erupted in a collective giggle that lasted for five minutes, or even more, because they really weren't keeping track of the time when all they had was this last hour to be together in the same way that they had been for the past six years. Lily was the first to stop laughing, and she looked at her friends with eyes that were sparkling despite having her back turned to the moonlight. She wiped a miniscule tear from her cheek and let herself laugh a little more. Alice slung her arms around Hector and Lily's shoulders and guided them up the hill – sliding and slipping the entire walk up – and then releasing them so that she could flop down at the top and lean back.

"I wish it were possible to tan with this," Alice said as she closed her eyes and exhaled pleasantly.

"But you don't tan well at all!" Lily covered her mouth frantically to mask an obnoxious snort. "If anything you'd burn!"

"What would you call that?" Hector was examining the lines in his palms with unusual interest and had re-adopted his unreadable countenance.

"Well, a moonburn, obviously," Alice scoffed. "If you get a sunburn from the sun, you'd get a moonburn from the moon."

"That makes sense," Hector said flatly. He, too, leaned back and closed his eyes, perhaps to avoid something or perhaps because he wanted to test out the moonburn theory for himself. Lily, however, knew that it was because he was avoiding something and, even more simply, he loved the moon. He was odd in his own way and certainly possessed a significant amount of quirks. _It'd make sense if he told me he came from the moon_, she though, _I wouldn't have a hard time believing it with how much he stares at the thing._ She smiled and stifled another snort at the ridiculous idea and leaned back as well.

"This is how it should always be," sighed Alice. "Just the three of us, sitting on the hill looking at the moon."

"I agree," said Hector. Lily cracked open an eye and saw that he was smiling.

"As do I," said Lily. But something, in that moment, didn't feel right, and when Lily opened her eyes she found out it was because Hector had opened his and was no longer leaning, nor was he smiling. He was hunched over his lap playing with his hands and pursing his lips. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Hector said.

"You're not very convincing, you know." Alice stood up in one expert motion and dragged him up to stand beside her. They stood in front of Lily, still nestled in the grass, and blocked out the moon with their heads. "Go on, out with it."

"It's not right," Hector spluttered.

"You'll have to tell her otherwise this thing isn't going to work."

"Maybe it shouldn't."

"Hector…"

"Stop it."

"No, it's why we're out here."

"I know, but now it sounds like a bad idea."

"Fine, I'll tell her." Alice punched him in the shoulder and said to Lily, "Hector did a little research when he was in one of his moody funks last week and came across a tricky little thing that sounded like a good idea for the three of us. What was it called again?"

"Alice, that's enough."

"Damn, it's on the tip of my tongue too…"

"Alice I swear – "

"Oh! Oh, oh, oh!" She jumped up and down, pumping her fists in the air like she had just won a personal victory. "It was called the _Ritus Vinculum_, the Rite of Bonds."

"Oh for Christ's sake, Alice – "

"Or the Unbreakable Bond. Sort of like an Unbreakable Vow, isn't it?"

Hector fell silent and was very visibly upset by Alice's flagrant disrespect towards him. Lily took a second to let it all register before letting them know that she had understood all of it with an attentive nod.

"You know it better than I do, Hec, fill her in." Alice patted his back and pushed him forward a smidge. Lily stood up and crossed her arms, but not in a way that suggested she had just found out he had done something terrible. If she was being honest with herself, she had no idea what in the world Alice was talking about. Hector, at first, was hesitant to say anything. When Lily smiled at him expectantly, though, was when he cracked.

"Fine." He threw his hands up in defeat. "It was outlawed centuries ago because of how reckless it is, so I don't see why I even thought of it in the first place – terrible idea, really. What it does is create a link between two or more people that will last a lifetime. Some even say it lasts beyond life, but no one's exactly come back from the dead and told anyone about it. It essentially guarantees that you will never lose the person you are bonded to. No matter how far apart you are, there will always be that link between you that will bring you back together. I asked Alice if she'd be game for it and she said yes." He shot her a disapproving look. She remained unapologetic.

"So, how is it reckless?" Lily asked.

"There's another – "

"Enough chit-chat, children," Alice interrupted. Hector looked grossly affronted at her butting in but couldn't get a word in over her hand placing itself firmly over his mouth. "This hand is only coming off of your mouth if you do the rites, Hec. And didn't you say there was a way out of it?"

He nodded, defeated.

"Then it's settled," she rolled her sleeves up and waited for the others to do the same. When all of their forearms were amply exposed, she directed them to join hands, save for Hector's right which would need to be used to perform the rite.

He took a deep breath and began. "_Tres animus, vita infinitus._" A golden rope undulated from his wand and embraced his hand with Alice's. It then coiled itself up her arm and onto the other, which was connected to Lily's. "_Solus nunquam, letum perpetuus._" The rope left Lily's right hand and found its way to her left. Hector put his wand back into his pocket and joined hands with her just as the rope took her fingertips. Lily could tell that he was uncomfortable, and if she could trust her gut she would have said that his very life was flashing before his eyes. She couldn't imagine why, it seemed a simple enough ritual. What harm could possibly befall them?

Alice and Hector were preparing for their graduation ceremony the entire day, so Lily had no time to see them. Instead, she spent lunch and supper with James and the rest of his friends – although she had to admit that they were becoming her friends as well, especially Remus – making sure to talk about anything but the seventh years' graduation that night.

Although, she heard that seventh years got sent out over the Black Lake in the boats. A tribute to how they first arrived at Hogwarts. And then Lily thought she might cry when she started to envision the lanterns mounted on the fronts of the little boats and all of the adults who had once been scared eleven-year-olds. She excused herself to the girl's bathroom for the remainder of supper until Jolene Throckmorton found her wiping her puffy eyes in the mirror.

They kept in touch, all of them, frequently, sending each other owls and care packages, Christmas presents, well-wishes, or even silly little thoughts scribbled out quickly on paper. The pen-pal status of their friendship was an adjustment at first, but Lily found that it made it that much easier for her to survive her seventh and final year of school.

She needed the support, too, because James proposed to her three weeks before their graduation. Alice sent letter after letter full of capital exclamations and objections, but Hector was very supportive and encouraged her to do what she felt was right.

She said yes, of course.

Alice attended the wedding, but Hector was nowhere to be found. Not a single card or present was sent in his place. No one had heard from him in months, Peter Pettigrew making quite a show of his concern for Hector's whereabouts, James brushing it off as "bad timing," and Grace and Douglas Evans reassuring Lily that he was alright and that something very important had probably come up at the last minute. Again, James trilled, "bad timing."

Every so often, after the wedding, she noticed her arms began to ache. It was a dull ache, but sometimes it was more noticeable and other times it just disappeared completely. She thought nothing of it and carried on with settling into the title of "Mrs. Lily Potter." When James' parents passed away (they had been along in age when James was born) he inherited all of their money and used it to buy them an attractive but tiny little cottage near the Forest of Dean.

Lily saw Alice regularly and helped her plan her wedding with Frank. Augusta Longbottom, Frank's mother, and Clovis Shaw, Alice's mother, became frequent guests at the cottage and kept Lily company on days when James would go out with Sirius and cause trouble with the Muggle police. She couldn't shake the feeling that Hector should be there with her. Wasn't that what the rite on the hill was supposed to be, a promise that no matter how far apart they were the three of them would always find a way back to each other?

And her arms still ached once in a while, varying in instensity, and she still didn't know why. She didn't care.

She was approached by Albus Dumbledore shortly after moving into her new home about joining the Order of the Phoenix. It was a resistance movement, he said, in the face of Voldemort and his followers. She liked to be kept busy so she readily signed up. Alice, naturally, had to tag along, and in time so did James, Peter, Sirius, and Remus.

She kicked herself every day for bemoaning the fact that Hector wasn't there to experience any of this with her, so she put it out of her mind one day and resolved never to give it another look again.


End file.
